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Muggle
In the fictional world of J. K. Rowling's book series Harry Potter, a muggle is a person who lacks any sort of magical ability and was not born into the magical world. Muggles also do not have any magical blood. It differs from the term Squib, which refers to a person with one or more magical parents yet without any magical ability, and from the term Muggle-born (or the more offensive mudblood), which refers to a person with magical abilities but without magical parents. Usage in Harry Potter The term muggle is sometimes used in a pejorative manner in the books. Since muggle refers to a person who is a member of the non-magical community, Muggles are simply ordinary human beings rather than witches and wizards. According to Rowling, a quarter of the annual Hogwarts intake have two non-magical parents; thus far in canon, there have also been some children known to have been born to one magical and one non-magical parent. Children of this mixed parentage are called half-bloods (strictly speaking, they are 'Literal Half-bloods'); children with recent Muggle ancestry on the one side or the other are also called half-bloods. The most prominent Muggle-born in the Harry Potter series is Hermione Granger, who had two muggles of unspecified names as parents. A witch or wizard with all magical heritage is called a pure-blood. In the Harry Potter books, non-magical people are often portrayed as foolish, sometimes befuddled characters who are completely ignorant of the Wizarding world that exists in their midst. If, by unfortunate means, non-magical people do happen to observe the working of magic, the Ministry of Magic sends Obliviators to cast Memory Charms upon them—causing them to forget the event. Some Muggles, however, know of the wizarding world. These include Muggle parents of magical children, such as Hermione Granger's parents, the Muggle Prime Minister (and his predecessors), the Dursley family (Harry Potter's non-magical and only living relatives), and the non-magical spouses of some witches and wizards. Rowling has said she created the word "Muggle" from "mug", an English term for someone who is easily fooled. She added the "-gle" to make it sound less demeaning and more "cuddly".http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2004/0304-wbd.htm JK Rowling's World Book Day Chat, 4 March 2004 A 'muggle' is, according to Abbott Walter Bower, the author of the Scotichronicon, "an Englishman's tail". In Alistair Moffat's book, A History of the Borders from Early Times it is stated that there was a widely held 13th century belief amongst Scots that Englishmen had tails.Alistair Moffat, The Borders: a history of the Borders from earliest times, 2002, Deerpark Press, ISBN 9780954197902, pp.211-212 Rowling herself was sued for using the word "muggle" in the Harry Potter books. http://www.cesnur.org/recens/potter_019.htm http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6517567/36/Harry_Potter_and_the_Temporal_Beacon.htm Various citations online. Notable muggles in the series *Petunia Dursley, Harry's Aunt *Vernon Dursley, Harry's Uncle *Dudley Dursley, Harry's Cousin *Marge Dursley, Vernon Dursley's sister *Muggle Prime Minister *Frank Bryce, the Riddle family gardener *Tom Riddle, Senior, Lord Voldemort's father *Mr. & Mrs. Granger, Hermione's parents *Tobias Snape, the father of Severus Snape *Mr. Roberts, the manager of the campground the Weasleys stayed at for the Quidditch World Cup Later usages The word muggle, or muggles is now used in various contexts in which its meaning is similar to the sense in which it appears in the Harry Potter book series. Generally speaking, it is used by members of a group to describe those outside the group, comparable to civilian as used by military personnel. Whereas, in the books, muggle is consistently capitalised, in other uses it is often all lower case. * Muggle was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003, where it is said to refer to a person who is lacking a skill. * Muggle is used in informal English by members of small, specialised groups, usually those that consider their activities to either be analogous to or directly involve magic (such as within hacker culture;Jargon File: muggle and Pagans, Neopagans and Wiccans)Faith von Adams, "I Roomed With A Muggle", New Witch Magazine, Issue 5 (Fall 2003) pg. 34 to refer to those outside the group. * Muggle (or geomuggle) is used by geocachers to refer to those not involved in or aware of the sport of geocaching. A cache that has been tampered with by non-participants is said to be plundered or muggled. * The NBC science fiction drama series Heroes features a dog named ''Mr. Muggles'', who is owned by the Bennet family. The writers of the show have stated that the dog's name is an allusion to the Harry Potter series as, like Harry, Claire Bennet has been adopted by a family who does not have any special abilities. *''Muggle'' is a term used frequently in the Tricking community, most notably to reference non-trickers. *Los Campesinos! used the term Muggle in their song 'The Sea is a Good Place to Think About the Future'. *''Swuggle'' is a variation of muggle that is used by open water swimmers to refer to non-swimmers. See also * Blood purity (Harry Potter) * Layman * Mundane References External links * BBC: 'Muggle' goes into Oxford English Dictionary * Muggle Guide: The Muggle Guide to the Harry Potter Wizarding World * I Roomed with a Muggle: Tips for Living with Non-Magical People Category:Harry Potter universe Category:Fictional human races